re? Were we not the leaders of great nations? Had we
indeed much right to complain if our imperial pose was flouted? "There,
at least," said Mr. Britling's reason, "is one of the lines of thought
that brought that unseen cruelty out of the night high over the houses
of Filmington-on-Sea. That, in a sense, is the cause of this killing.
Cruel it is and abominable, yes, but is it altogether cruel? Hasn't it,
after all, a sort of stupid rightness?--isn't it a stupid reaction to an
indolence at least equally stupid?"

What was this rightness that lurked below cruelty? What was the
inspiration of this pressure of spite, this anger that was aroused by
ineffective gentleness and kindliness? Was it indeed an altogether evil
thing; was it not rather an impulse, blind as yet, but in its ultimate
quality _as good as mercy_, greater perhaps in its ultimate values than
mercy?

This idea had been gathering in Mr. Britling's mind for many weeks; it
had been growing and taking shape as he wrote, making experimental
beginnings for his essay, "The Anatomy of Hate." Is there not, he now
asked himself plainly, a creative and corrective impulse behind all
hate? Is not this malignity indeed only the ape-like precursor of the
great disciplines of a creative state?

The invincible hopefulness of his sanguine temperament had now got Mr.
Britling well out of the pessimistic pit again. Already he had been on
the verge of his phrase while wandering across the rushy fields towards
Market Saffron; now it came to him again like a legitimate monarch
returning from exile.

"When hate shall have become creative energy....

"Hate which passes into creative power; gentleness which is indolence
and the herald of euthanasia....

"Pity is but a passing grace; for mankind will not always be pitiful."

But meanwhile, meanwhile.... How long were men so to mingle wrong with
right, to be energetic without mercy and kindly without energy?...

For a time Mr. Britling sat on the lonely parade under the stars and in
the sound of the sea, brooding upon these ideas.

His mind could make no further steps. It had worked for its spell. His
rage had ebbed away now altogether. His despair was no longer infinite.
But the world was dark and dreadful still. It seemed none the less dark
because at the end there was a gleam of light. It was a gleam of light
far beyond the limits of his own life, far beyond the life of his son.
It had no balm for these sufferings. Betwee